


The Meaning of Safety

by drelfina



Series: A Very Chinese ABO [1]
Category: Joy of Life, Joy of Life (TV), 庆余年 | Joy of Life (TV), 庆余年 | Qing Yu Nian (TV)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, F/M, Gender Inequality, M/M, Other, a very Chinese style ABO for a Very Chinese drama, gender inequality in a very asian way, slightly different ABO, unequal ABO population dynamics, what does it mean to be Safe?, what does it mean to be omega?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:49:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24329065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drelfina/pseuds/drelfina
Summary: Everyone knows that omegas need to be safe to have heats.In a world where omegas are rare and precious, it becomes the duty of society to ensure that they, indeed, are kept safe.A very Chinese sort of society with a very unique ABO social dynamic
Relationships: Beiqi Emperor/Si Lili (Implied), Fan Xian/Lin Wan'er, Li Chengqian/Li Chengze (Unrequited), Li Yunrui/Qing Emperor (Unrequited), Ye Qingmei/Chen Pingping (implied)
Series: A Very Chinese ABO [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1761676
Comments: 16
Kudos: 28





	The Meaning of Safety

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evocates](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evocates/gifts).



> So this is a weird one: i've never written a fanfic for a chinese tv drama, and most definitely not one like this, where the book it's based on is very much _what the fuck_ , but the tv-drama is full of incredibly huge, experienced, award winning _veteran_ actors, where the Chinese word play is as good as the subtle and contextual acting. 
> 
> I had stopped watching the series mid-way the first time I watched it, because one of my favourite characters died. But when Evocates started watching it, I was curious enough to continue watching and oh, _oh_ it was such a good thing I did, because I had had _no_ idea that the actors were such GOOD actors and that what i thought was just slash goggles was literally the gayest kind of acting on the parts of the actors _and_ the writing. 
> 
> So this is an ABO, but one inspired greatly by Evocates' own worldbuilding, mostly inspired by their Sanguo ABO in terms of the fact that omegas don't undergo cyclic heats, but instead only when they feel _safe_. Alpha, beta, and omega-ness is known from birth, therefore ABO is known as caste, rather than dynamic. 
> 
> In Qing (aka Nanqing or Southern Qing), the ABO population is roughly: 30% alpha, 60% beta, 10% omega. 
> 
> In Beiqi (aka Northern Qi), the ABO population is roughly 30% alpha, 55% beta, 15% omega. The 5% difference makes an actual difference in social treatment.

** Chen Pingping **

When he had conceived of his plan, he hadn't thought it would reach further than the high officials of the nearby cities.

He'd _hoped_ that maybe, even possibly someone like a minister would consider his...

Well it'd be crude to call it bait. Call it _reputation_.

After all he was a mere merchant's omega son - they lived in a completely different province from the Capital City, and he knew his own status very well.

With his talent and status, he could _hope_ for, perhaps, an assistant minister's eye.

There were at least seven with alpha sons of good breeding and learning, and he was fairly sure he could be content enough there.

He wasn't ambitious; there was no point being ambitious. Why would someone with his background even think of hoping for a _Marquis_? Being in the Capital - even his own parents would be satisfied if he could get to live there, in the softer comforts than here, surrounded by more of the literati, possibly with a chance to see some of the Beiqi scholars, and get hold of the publications as early as the first printing.

Chen Pingping was very pragmatic; after all, all omegas were to marry eventually. Why aim high when he knew his own worth?

Then the alpha showed up, asking to see him, and when he'd looked up, she'd met his eyes across the room, and smiled.

* * *

** Li Yunrui  **

How did an omega decide who to follow?

She had not been nobody. She had had the pick of every one and any alpha in the entire Capital, her.

She had grown up close to the Palace - a cousin had been the late-emperor's beloved guifei, a consort who had the luck of bearing him a clever alpha girl.

She, the daughter of a Marquis.

She could have had the pick of anyone; and of course, she picked the one alpha she knew was the one who would win a country, even if he had been nobody.

For she had looked into his eyes, and felt the shiver his scent had sent down her spine.

This one, she'd thought, was the only alpha she could rely on.

He who had been one of the forgotten alpha-children.

And in the flames that burned down the old reign and heralded the new, he called her, "My beloved sister."

And that was when she knew.

That there was no one else.

* * *

** Li Chengze **

He never bothered thinking useless things like, _If only I wasn't born omega_.

It was the cards that he'd been dealt, the situation he had been given even before he had the understanding of it.

His birth had been considered a fortuitous sign, a blessing from the Heavens upon the reign of his Imperial Father, to be granted an omega child from a mere beta-consort.

His birth guaranteed his mother's safety and rank for life, and he was not competition to Her Imperial Majesty the Empress, either, for his mother bore no more children other than himself.

But he was an Imperial child.

And if one read enough of history, one knew that Imperial children were always born into danger.

And that was the fate of an Imperial child: danger, and uncertainty.

Unlike his beloved older brother, who was completely and utterly disqualified from the throne by his mother's blood, Li Chengze was Qing through and through. Other omegas could be content with a mate's protection to guarantee safety for their heats; not so for an Imperial Omega.

No.

His fate was always to be determined by someone else, his Father from the beginning, and when his younger brother born of the Empress came of age, he knew that it would be by him. To be bartered or married off as his younger brother might will, and sometimes, Chengze thought he might _almost_ be alright with that if it wasn't _him_.

Because he noticed how his brother had looked at their aunt with something covetous in his eyes, and when he had grown a little more, abruptly realised that his brother's _scent_ was directed at _him_ , sour with possessiveness, rough with jealousy.

Li Chengze was not interested in the throne for power; but he was a chessmaster, not a pawn. Someone like the Crown Prince his brother would, if he could not possess, then destroy, like the trees in his backyard that refused to bloom out of season just on his say-so.

And Li Chengze _refused_ to be under the control of someone like that.

* * *

** Lin Wan'er **

The stars had always been her companions.

She knew she was fortunate; if she had not been an omega, she wouldn't have even been allowed to live in the palace, a close enough place for her father's legitimate son to visit her, a place that her mother's maids and people could come in to look at her.

She would possibly have been put in some Imperial property in the backwater provinces, with no one who would ever talk to her; here, she had the run of the Hougong and the Emperor's consorts as her health might allow.

When she had been younger still, the Oldest Prince and Second Prince could visit her; her oldest cousin was much older than her, and had little enough to say to a child less than ten, but he had brought games of strategy and toys, and was genuinely befuddled when she didn't like to play with the little soldiers but preferred the tops.

Her Second Cousin, she thought would play with her for longer; he was like her, though he lived with his mother and she did not. He brought her books from his mother's collection, fought with her over poetry and shared snippets of non-literary novels he had had smuggled in from outside the Palace.

But at night, they always had to leave. Every night, she was alone, surrounded by toys that didn't move without her Cousin, by words that went unread.

And eventually, even her Second Cousin moved out - putting his hair up like a beta and left his mother's quarters, leaving her to her half-brother's infrequent, guilty visits, and the echoing silence of the servants.

And even then the only things that were constant, through the clouds and rain, were the stars.

And that would have been all that it was, until she met a young alpha who didn't care that she was eating forbidden chicken.

* * *

** Fan Ruoruo **

She was lucky she was who she was.

Treasured, beloved, _indulged_.

It was only odd, when she thought back, that to be treasured and indulged and sheltered was to be sent to the same backwaters as her illegitimate older brother. She hadn't thought about it till she was introduced to the treasured children of the Capital, the ones who would be future wives and concubines.

She had been sad when she had had to leave her brother behind, him and his beloved stories and his weird games in the courtyard that Grandmother had allowed them.

Her brother had been kept in Danzhou out of shame, she had been raised in Danzhou out of indulgence; for when she came to her Father's house, the discipline of Sizhe had been given to her, and even her father's second wife said nothing at all.

Because it was her right as the cherished, beloved, _rare_ omega of the Fan household to do whatever it was that would let her be safe.

If she had been born an omega child to commoners, to farmers, she would have been much like some of those she met her own age, gently reared but their hair worn in the style of the marked and mated, sweet-tempered, submissive and eternally grateful for the favour the Heavens had granted them of having been born of the right caste to be forever beloved, and their birth families lifted out of poverty.

(If they knew who their birth-parents were. That was _her_ privilege, to be born and kept safe, and yet always know her birth family, who her parents were, who her siblings were. That she would have her birth family to visit in the new year.)

It was only when father brought her brother to the Capital in anticipation of his marriage, that she wondered, truly, whether it had been _really_ shame that had kept Fan Xian out of the Capital.

* * *

** Si Lili **

She had been born to silk, raised with steel.

If it hadn't been for her caste, there would have been little enough safety for herself and her brother - they who had been old enough to realise the dangers of their surname.

Unlike the country that she had been born to, her new nation did not have quite so few omegas; and thus they could all choose where to seek their own safety, unlike in Nanqing where it was decided for them.

So when she begged for shelter and safety for herself and her brother, she had been allowed to choose the way in which she might pay for said shelter.

For unlike in Nanqing, everything was a matter of payment - everything was _fair_.

She, for all that she had steel in her blood, had talent that laid nowhere in the martial skills, and so she chose silk.

Silk over hair, silk over face, silk in words; thus she spoke with the faintest lilt of the North on her tongue, and dressed in silk that came from the East, and was the rarest silk of them all; the kind that had been bought by the Silk Houses and raised to the privilege of never having to be married.

Untouchable, unwinnable. _Unmateable_.

She was to be as silk flowers in winter; forever beautiful, unclaimed and untouched, and for the hours of her company, the silk of whispers and secrets were to be her payment.

And in fair recompense, the Emperor of the North would shelter her brother; if she could last long enough, three, ten times as long as the real peonies that bloomed constantly in the glass hothouses, the Emperor would reward her for fair work.

Fair and hazardous work -- for plying the silk trade in the country of her birth was treacherous with hidden steel.

Because the steel that had cleaved her from her own family and name, turned her and her brother to beg shelter from the North, was a monster that was _everywhere_ in the Great South. The one whose shadows laid quiet and invisible until suddenly a forgotten, unknown prince of the blood rose up and, at his command, tore the family down.

This steel had a reach that not even she, who had been born in the same country, could imagine; she had grown up with nightmares of black masked men on black armoured horses, and even the furtherest reaches of the North was hardly safe from them.

But in a sense, because the steel was everywhere, then it too was nowhere. She was safe nowhere, so Nanqing was as safe as it anywhere.

As long as she avoided the eyes of the Emperor's Omega, she would be safe enough to survive to redeem Beiqi's promise.

* * *

** The Emperor of Beiqi **

When she was born, she had an older brother.

Some days, when the wind was particularly still, she thought she could still hear the ring of his horse's hooves on the pavement outside the reception hall.

He had been the sun in her life; her first steps had been with his help, and the first poem she read had been written in his hand.

A child of their Clan, he'd told her, his smile flashing in the sun, had to be as good with the sword as with the brush, and particularly so, since she was a cherished omega sister. She was to have all the options available to herself to secure her own safety, and that was his duty to provide them to her.

Sword and brush, horse and book; she thought she had years yet to choose.

Her father had thought so too -- her brother had had a fiancee, and the spring before he was to wed, he died in the southern border, unmarried, without an heir.

In the end, the choice had been made for her -- perhaps all such choices were pre-determined, based on the lot that the Heavens threw down.

Not just poems, not just horse; the books she read after her father received the terrible news were that of strategy and management. The way she bound her hair was that of an Heir, and not of a beloved little sister.

Her father could have chosen to adopt a cousin, but there had been few enough on the ground - and Grand-Uncle had never married, and instead taken disciples.

So she was to be Emperor, and when her father passed away, she tied her hair up for the final time on her own, and put away her horse and sword.

She had a country to keep safe; the choice had been made for her, when she no longer had an older brother.

**Author's Note:**

> A little bit of explanation: 
> 
> Because feudal Chinese society is so very stratified in both class and gender, it would therefore stand to reason that ABO caste would also result in stratification. 
> 
> Omegas are rare: omegas almost always only come from Alpha-Omega matings, though there are occasional Beta-beta or Alpha-beta pairings that result in omega children. 
> 
> Therefore, most alphas would take betas as spouses. 
> 
> With omegas being so rare, a commoner pairing, or peasant pairing, if they were so fortunate as to have an omega child, would _always_ sell this child. 
> 
> Who would buy it? Richer families like a merchant family, a noble family, or those officials' families, sometimes escort or pleasure houses. the lucky parents of said child would get such a huge payment that they probably would never have to worry about feeding themselves or their other children for the rest of their lives. 
> 
> The bought omega child would never be mistreated either: they would be reared and educated with all the necessary education - literature, poetry, history, perhaps household management, social etiquette, and so on, to be the delicate, beautiful, treasured omega concubine to the (usually) alpha heir of the household. The position of Wife is reserved for alliances - but an Omega Concubine is not a role to be scoffed at either - an omega concubine such as this is probably the one you display, who acts as the hostess for important social functions. A huge display of wealth and fortune, indeed, that you can not only afford an omega concubine for your family's heir, but that you can keep one of these precious rarities _safe_. 
> 
> Omega children of richer families would of course not be sold, but also educated and _indulged_ \-- an omega is allowed a lot, in order to be kept safe. Omega children of important families do become wives, because they would bring with them _alliances_. 
> 
> Or they might become Imperial Consorts, maybe even the Empress. 
> 
> As every omega is treated with indulgence, powerful omegas -- omegas who are highly intelligent, omegas who are insanely powerful, ie: those born to the imperial _family_ , have a completely different concept of safety than those who are not imperial. 
> 
> Those who are born in the Imperial family have to make themselves safe - whether it is to be content to have their lives determined by their Imperial Father and/or imperial Princely siblings, or whether to fight for power in order to keep themselves safe. the indulgence of an imperial omega is a very, very powerful thing altogether.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Now Beiqi in the tv-drama is shown to have strong ties to the Jianghu, with a slight difference in gender roles. Women can choose to be actors within the Jianghu with their own personal alliances and autonomy, unlike most women in Qing. Therefore, it stands to reason that omegas are also indulged in a different way: they have the autonomy of choice in how they might make their own safety, unlike in Qing where the choice is made for them. (the reasoning here is that Beiqi has more omegas, so that risk is allowed. Is it that the choice allows more omega to be born there, and the cossetting in Qing suffocates them? It's a recursive argument, and it really depends on whether you're asking Beiqi or Qing)
> 
> * * *
> 
> This fic seized me last night, and I had to write it. I have no idea who would read this other than Evocates: it is, after all, a primarily chinese fandom, and my chinese is too horrible to be able to write in Chinese, and English does not lend itself to the kind of wordplay common in Chinese. 
> 
> So really this is far more self-indulgent than anything.


End file.
